YVETTE Cooper has been blasted after “doing one of her first big interviews” as Health Secretary on with her husband’s podcast.
The Labour minister sat down for an “exclusive” chat with Political Currency, the podcast hosted by her husband Ed Balls and former Tory chancellor George Osborne.
Balls recused himself from the interview, after he was panned previously for interviewing his wife on ITV when she was home secretary in 2024.
LBC host Ben Kentish pointed out that Labour have blamed Osborne’s austerity programme, which a 2022 study linked to more than 330,000 excess deaths, for much of the UK’s present ills.
He said: “Yvette Cooper doing one of her first big interviews as Health Secretary on a podcast hosted by her husband, being interviewed by the former Tory chancellor who she and her colleagues blame (with good reason) for so much of what’s wrong with the country at the moment. Who thought that was a good look?
Kentish added: “George Osborne’s austerity programme has been linked to up to 335,000 excess deaths.
“Here the current Labour Secretary of State for Health (of all things) sits down for a pally chat with him.”
Fellow LBC presenter James Hanson added: “I wonder how on earth Ed Balls’ podcast managed to bag this ‘exclusive?!?”
Ofcom received more than 16,000 after Balls interviewed his wife on ITV two years ago but said it would not investigate.
ITV’s chief executive Carolyn McCall later justified the interview saying that the circumstances surrounding the interview were “tricky” given the riots sweeping across England at the point but insisted the piece was “fair and impartial”.
She added that the broadcaster would not “do it again” but insisted the couple had behaved “professionally”.
Balls, a former Cabinet minister under Gordon Brown, flew into a rage when interviewing Green leader Zack Polanski earlier this year when the politician pointed out his connection to the Labour government.
Polanski said: “Do you know what I'm enjoying? That the fact that a Labour politician who's married to a senior Labour minister is allowed to ask questions of the leader of the Green Party.”
A seething Balls went on to complain about how Polanski had “accused me of being a Labour Cabinet minister”.
Balls is also in a band, called Centrist Dad, with ITV presenter Robert Peston.
In her interview with Osborne, Cooper said Andy Burnham was an improvement on Keir Starmer.
The Health Secretary said Starmer had “a style of leading the Government that maybe doesn’t necessarily work in politics”, because he had a “bring me solutions, not problems” style of management.
Referring to immigration reforms which were launched during her time in the Home Office, she said: “It was like, ‘well, you can sit in the front row of the launch but actually, the Prime Minister’s going to launch it’.
“But actually, the Prime Minister’s not really been involved in the development of policies.”
Cooper said that in “contrast”, the Prime Minister’s drive to reform social care has largely “come from Andy because it’s something he’s been passionate about”.
The Prime Minister has pledged to work cross-party to create a care system where patients can “move seamlessly between hospitals, home care and community services”, while being “fully and sustainably funded”.
Cooper continued: “He wanted to then talk a lot about – what are the problems here? How should we be thinking about it? How should we be trying to solve it?
“And he wanted me to be part of the event launching it, to be speaking at it, to be talking about it.
“And I think there’s, maybe there’s a difference in style of operating.”
Persephonica, the production company behind Political Currency, was approached for comment.
